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Ninety years have passed since the discovery of Machu Picchu, the celebrated "lost city" of the Inca hidden in the mountains of Peru. But only recently an American water engineer uncovered somne of its most fascinating secrets.
With bright eyes, Ruth Wright recalls her second visit to Machu Picchu. She had traveled there with her husband, Kenneth R. Wright, to search for the spring that supplied water to the Inca people who lived there some 450 years ago. A local Quechua Indian led them through the dense forest to the spot where the water emerged from the ground. The Wrights knew they had found what they were looking for when the man showed them a carved stone foundation, tapping it with the handle of his machete. "Inca," he told them. "Inca."
The city of Machu Picchu, once the royal estate of a powerful Inca emperor, lay hidden in the mountains of Peru until 1911, when Hiram Bingham, a professor of history at Yale, discovered its ruins. Since then, it has become perhaps the most important archaeological site in the Americas. Most people know Machu Picchu not for its history, but for its breathtaking beauty. For years, few even within the scientific community recognized that it also represents a remarkable achievement of civil engineering. Then came Ken Wright.
Were it not for his wife's curiosity, Wright-the president of Wright Water Engineers, of Denver-might never have visited Machu Picchu. Ruth visited Machu Picchu in 1974 and of course showed Ken the photographs from her trip-and told him about the fountains and other structures the Inca had built to handle water. But Machu Picchu sits on the top of a mountain ridge, and Ruth asked, Where did the Inca get their water?
Ken Wright decided to find out. After all, who better to study the Inca water supply than a water engineer?
But one problem stood in his way: Not just anyone can go to Peru and start digging things up-especially an American engineer with no archaeological experience. Wright spent the next 20 years seeking permission from the Peruvian government to study water engineering at Machu Picchu. Finally, he enlisted the help of Timothy Wirth, a U.S. senator from Colorado who later became the undersecretary of state...